1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiring method for a resin mold product such as a pillar trim for vehicles, and more particularly to a resin mold product and a wiring method by which wires of various kinds can be easily arranged and workability can be enhanced by the automation of wiring.
2. Related Art
Since many electric devices of various kinds are mounted to a vehicle internally and externally, hundreds or thousands of wires are arranged to the vehicle regardless of whether it is a popularly-priced car or a luxury car.
In the prior art, a circuit mounted to an instrument panel and a circuit mounted to a roof are connected by a series of long wires (a wire harness) which extend from the instrument to the roof via the inside of a pillar trim (a resin mold product) mounted to the front pillar.
However, such pillar trim is long and narrow, and because of this, it has been difficult to fit long wires inside the pillar trim. For this reason, the wiring from the instrument panel to the roof cannot be performed efficiently, making it a time-consuming troublesome procedure.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 8-37991 and 8-45570 each discloses an electric connector box as shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B.
In those figures, reference numeral 101 indicates a case (a resin mold product) that constitutes the electric connector box having wire grooves 101a. Wires 102 are received by the wire grooves 101a and secured to the wire grooves 101a by solderless terminals 103.
With this structure, the wires 102 are attached to the case 101 that is the resin mold product, so that the wires 102 can be efficiently arranged in the wire grooves 101a of the electric connector box with the help of the solderless terminals 103.
According to the above conventional wiring method, however, the wires 102 cannot be secured at positions where there is no need to connect the solderless terminals 103, because the wires 102 are secured firmly only where the solderless terminals 103 are connected.
On the other hand, since wires attached to a front pillar are lengthy, they need to be secured at least at both ends and at the mid section. Since no solderless terminal 103 is required at the mid section of the wires, there has been a problem that they cannot be secured at the mid section.
The solderless terminals 103 can secure the discrete wires 102 into the wire grooves 101a, but a flat wire harness consisting of a plurality of conductors covered with an insulating coating cannot be secured. This sets a limit to types of wires that can be employed.
Since the coating of a flat wire harness is generally made of PET (polyethylene telephthalate), it is difficult to secure the flat wire harness by using an adhesive to the wire grooves 101a of the case 101 that is a resin mold product.
Further, there has been a problem that the structure of the electric connector box tends to become too complicated, requiring separate components, such as the solderless terminals 103, securing wires 102. Moreover, the solderless terminals 103 need to be fitted into the wire grooves 101a one by one so as to secure the wires 102 to the case 101. For this reason, mounting of the solderless terminals 103 has been troublesome and time-consuming.